president obama spoke on the phone with house speaker john boehner on wednesday while his treasury secretary said the white house is, in fact, ready to go straight over the fiscal cliff. major garrett is at the white house. major, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, norah and charlie. later on this afternoon the president will travel across the potomac river to northern virginia to meet a middle-class family to make the self-evident point if the there is a deal and taxes are raised by about $2,000 they'll be happier and spend more money. that's the p.r. side of this. much more importantly, for the deal, the two key players yesterday picked up the phone. the phone call relatively brief and substantive, though details remain illusive. shorter, sources say. the last week 28-minute conversation described then as curt, direct and frank. no one with this call used such barbed words and occurred before treasury secretary tim geithner laid down this harsh fiscal cliff marker. >> if the administration, are they prepared to go over the fiscal cliff? >> absolutely. no prospect or agreement that do